This study examines the impact of language diversity on interpersonal relationships in multinational and national/domestic teams in a multilingual country – India. Specifically, it explores whether and how the influence of language diversity differs in the two types of multilingual project teams. To this end, using direct observations and semi-structured interviews, we conducted a thematic analysis and found that native language-based faultlines and groups exist in both kinds of teams. However, such faultlines and language-based groups can disintegrate into smaller, regional dialect-based subgroups due to the emergence of dialect faultlines. Furthermore, evidence suggests that multilingual managers are more effective as boundary spanners in bridging the faultlines in multinational teams; at the same time, they need to be aware of the distinction between language differences and faultlines. This study provides the required distinction between language diversity and the role of multilingual managers in national and multinational teams in an understudied context, thereby contributing to the literature on language diversity.

In this study, we conceptualize the thus far little explored relationship between expatriate and host country as a form of social exchange governed by the norm of reciprocity. Drawing from social exchange theory and our analysis of 451 self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) living and working in the United Arab Emirates, we examine whether the degree of SIEs’ career and community embeddedness explains their host country withdrawal intention via enhanced perceived institutional trust and a more tolerant attitude toward workplace discrimination. Our results provide general support for our theoretical model and most of our hypotheses. In this way, our article makes three contributions. First, it suggests a novel way to conceptualize the relationship between SIEs and host country as a form of social exchange. Second, it differentiates between two dimensions of embeddedness and explicates how the two contribute to SIEs’ intentions to stay in the host country. Finally, the analysis theorizes and empirically tests two previously little explored mechanisms of enhanced institutional trust and a more tolerant attitude toward workplace discrimination through which SIEs’ host country embeddedness influences their host country withdrawal intentions.

Organizational interactions in fields, including their antecedents and consequences, remain under-researched, in particular with regard to relational distance and transformative skills. Through a comparative study of the German and Japanese wind power sectors, we explore the importance of distance among organizational actors and the development of skills. While in the case of Germany a radical increase in wind energy generation can be witnessed, the situation in the field of Japanese wind power remains largely unchanged. We show how different degrees of distance among organizational actors in these two countries result in the different development of skills that stimulate transformation in the field of energy generation. More precisely, we illustrate the pivotal role of distant challengers with their transformative skills for the successful conversion of already established field structures. Our study contributes to field theory by elaborating on the understanding of the evolution of relational distance, thereby grasping the dynamic interplay between the diversity of actors and their skill formation within a certain strategic action field.

In this study, we examine the moderation effect of absorptive capacity on the performance consequences of diversification experiences. We suggest that absorptive capacity positively moderates the performance effects of product and international diversification experiences and those of unrelatedness in product and international diversification experiences. An empirical analysis conducted using a longitudinal dataset of Indian firms, from knowledge-intensive manufacturing sectors, for the period 2008–2018, broadly supports our arguments. Findings imply that firms with superior absorptive capacity can acquire and leverage knowledge from their diversification experiences effectively and mitigate the risks of negative transfer associated with unrelatedness in diversification experiences. Findings contribute to the organizational learning literature by examining the role of absorptive capacity in enabling performance outcomes of diversification experiences.

Employee performance attainment is a pervasive issue in the workplace and is increasingly becoming an important problem for effective human resource management. A review of the extant literature on perceived organizational support (POS) and performance suggests that there is a dearth of research aimed at examining the underlying mechanisms and the boundary conditions of the relationship between POS and performance. One of the objectives of this study is to examine the mediating role of psychological capital on the relationship between POS and performance. Furthermore, this study investigates the moderating role of organizational justice perception in said indirect relationship. Study 1 included a sample of 465 employees from both large private life insurance and telecom organizations. Study 2 was conducted on a sample of 216 employees from a large steel manufacturing firm. Findings suggest that psychological capital mediated the relationship between POS and performance. The indirect relationship of POS and performance via psychological capital was moderated by organizational justice. However, there is a counter-intuitive finding in this research. It was observed that at a high level of organizational justice, it had a smaller effect on performance in contrast to low level of organizational justice. Finally, theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

How do corporate political ties impact firm performance in a transition economy? This topic has attracted wide attention in the strategy field. Accordingly, our study replicates a highly influential study, ‘Managerial ties and firm performance in a transition economy: The nature of a micro-macro link’ (Peng & Luo, 2000). The original study found that managerial political ties greatly improve organizational performance, and that this ‘micro-macro’ link varies across ownership types, business sectors, firm sizes, and industry growth rates. This replication study offers a hierarchical view of political ties by extending it from the individual to the organizational level and explores the complex link between the two levels of corporate political ties and firm performance. The results of a staged quasi-replication exercise show some similarities with the original study in the mechanism of corporate political ties on firm performance but, more importantly, reveal some key differences in the effect size and contingent effects. Furthermore, an extended test shows that corporate political ties are multilevel, and different levels of political ties vary in their mechanisms and effects on firm performance. The findings reveal temporal and contextual sensitivities of political ties studies in transition economies.

Structural and sequential ambidexterity are proved to be two prevalent approaches in managing tension between exploration and exploitation. Dominant studies have treated the two approaches as mutually exclusive but have provided less insight about their combination, and the organizational configurations that advance such combination, which is a major meaningful gap explored in the current study. This study aims to explore the configurations of organization design choices to combine structural and sequential approaches from a holistic perspective. We apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the empirical data collected from 102 firms in China. The results show that firms attain high ambidexterity with both separated and blended configurations. Blended ones demonstrate that the structural and sequential approaches can be combined in a way that one approach dominates and the other subordinates. Organizational design mechanisms regarding the configurations for combining structural and sequential approaches are concluded as multielements (complements and substitutes) and multilevels (fit and interaction). These findings are also interpreted through the Chinese ‘Yin-Yang’ framework, which introduces ‘Yin-Yang balancing’ into the ambidexterity literature.

This study unpacks how responsible leadership driven by a social mission can accomplish both social objectives and financial goals to support an organization's survival. We focus on a social enterprise in the healthcare industry in China and examine how it balances its social mission and economic goals by enlarging the capacity of medical institutions and providing high-quality services to a high number of patients. Through our analysis of the case firm, we reveal the motivation and actions of an entrepreneur in establishing a socially responsible firm and the social implications of responsible leadership in operating such an enterprise. We provide an important supplement and extension to the work of Smith and Besharov (2019) by demonstrating how a responsible leader in China manages the process of balancing social and economic goals. We further contribute to the understanding of how a socially responsible firm can improve the healthcare industry and the reform of China's healthcare.